WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:03.680 The Philippines is the 2nd most dangerous country in the world 00:00:03.680 --> 00:00:06.800 for human rights and land defenders. 00:00:06.800 --> 00:00:10.280 Every 12 days an activist who opposes big corporations 00:00:10.280 --> 00:00:14.000 accused of illegal labour practices and violent land grabbing, 00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:15.240 is killed here. 00:00:15.240 --> 00:00:17.520 It’s common for the assassins to be members 00:00:17.520 --> 00:00:20.160 of state-backed paramilitaries on the payroll 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:23.600 of big corporations and so they rarely face punishment. 00:00:23.600 --> 00:00:26.560 The dead are often written off by officials 00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:28.400 as Communist collaborators. 00:00:36.600 --> 00:00:40.720 Meanwhile big mining, logging and agribusiness corporations 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:43.720 pressure the government to crackdown on the NPA 00:00:43.720 --> 00:00:46.800 whose regular attacks last year cost them 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:50.680 over 250 million dollars in damage in Mindanao alone. 00:00:50.680 --> 00:00:53.920 They say the NPA is the biggest obstacle 00:00:53.920 --> 00:00:55.840 to them expanding on the island, 00:00:55.840 --> 00:00:59.560 which a leaked US embassy cable identified has a potential 00:00:59.560 --> 00:01:03.920 of 1 trillion dollars worth of untapped resources. 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:07.600 Much of those resources are believed to be on the ancestral lands 00:01:07.600 --> 00:01:09.920 of indigenous groups like the Lumad, 00:01:09.920 --> 00:01:12.600 who are routinely evicted by paramilitaries 00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:15.240 so that big business can move in. 00:01:15.240 --> 00:01:18.000 A tiny Lumad community living near the NPA base, 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:21.400 more than a days walk from the nearest road into town, 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:25.400 told us the horrors that they’ve lived through. 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:33.360 Here in Agusan, our youngest brother was killed. 00:01:33.360 --> 00:01:44.200 He was the most active in our struggle, 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:51.360 that’s why he was a prime target 00:01:51.360 --> 00:01:57.560 of government-backed bandits. 00:01:57.560 --> 00:02:06.800 They were tailing him and finally 00:02:06.800 --> 00:02:22.880 he was shot on his way to Kalabugao. 00:02:22.880 --> 00:02:35.360 As I have witnessed, officers from our Lumad organisation 00:02:35.360 --> 00:02:41.520 are threatened and killed by the soldiers 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:47.280 of this reactionary government. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:56.640 These killings have happened countless times; 00:02:56.640 --> 00:03:01.240 a more recent victim is Datu (chieftain) Renato Anglao, 00:03:01.240 --> 00:03:07.800 an official from Kalumbay Regional Lumad Organisation. 00:03:07.800 --> 00:03:10.840 He was our leader. 00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:14.560 When the soldiers were coming to their community 00:03:14.560 --> 00:03:18.280 they are very terrified. 00:03:18.280 --> 00:03:24.640 Some of them evacuate because they are afraid, 00:03:24.640 --> 00:03:29.400 but in our side they are very happy, very excited 00:03:29.400 --> 00:03:35.880 “oh the comrades are here, let’s give them some chicken” 00:03:35.880 --> 00:03:38.480 whatever that he can give us. 00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:42.800 As Mayor of Mindanao’s capital Davao for 30 years, 00:03:42.800 --> 00:03:45.600 Duterte won a reputation of defending the Lumad 00:03:45.600 --> 00:03:47.560 against paramilitaries. 00:03:47.560 --> 00:03:50.160 So they were horrified when he became President 00:03:50.160 --> 00:03:53.640 and gave a green light for the killings to not only continue, 00:03:53.640 --> 00:03:58.440 but Lumad children, he said, are also fair game. 00:03:58.440 --> 00:04:02.400 Leave. I'm telling those in the Lumad schools now, get out. 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:09.200 I'll bomb you. I'll include your structures. 00:04:09.200 --> 00:04:14.000 I will use the Armed Forces, the Philippine Air Force. 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:17.960 I will really bomb all of it. 00:04:17.960 --> 00:04:22.960 Because you are operating illegally and you are teaching the children 00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:26.440 to rebel against government. 00:04:26.440 --> 00:04:34.880 Here in the highlands there is no free education, 00:04:34.880 --> 00:04:40.840 particularly for the Lumads. 00:04:40.840 --> 00:04:46.800 In other places schools are being built 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:52.600 but the government is threatening them. 00:04:52.600 --> 00:05:00.680 Schools were burnt by paramilitaries. 00:05:00.680 --> 00:05:05.840 There is no future waiting for them. 00:05:05.840 --> 00:05:11.640 If this situation continues, 00:05:11.640 --> 00:05:20.480 the number of young people here in the movement will increase. 00:05:20.480 --> 00:05:23.560 The recruits in this platoon, are mainly Lumad, 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:26.240 including its commander. 00:05:26.240 --> 00:05:28.640 His warnings and threats against the Lumad people 00:05:28.640 --> 00:05:31.440 are causing us fright. 00:05:31.440 --> 00:05:34.760 I have understood why we should revolt, 00:05:34.760 --> 00:05:39.800 I have understood the revolutionary programmes, 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:43.360 that’s why I am resolute to commit full-time. 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:47.280 As I see it, the only way to face 00:05:47.280 --> 00:05:52.360 the problems confronting us, the Lumad people, is through revolution. 00:05:52.360 --> 00:05:55.560 The Filipino government often claims NPA recruits 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:58.440 are lured by dirty money the guerrilla are stacking 00:05:58.440 --> 00:06:02.400 from drug dealing or extorting businesses and farmers. 00:06:02.400 --> 00:06:05.240 The NPA calls this “black propaganda”. 00:06:05.240 --> 00:06:08.600 Here, honestly, we are not paid. 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:14.120 You will not receive a salary, trophies or medals. 00:06:14.120 --> 00:06:22.920 What you get is motivation, hope. 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:31.440 The people themselves will support you, with moral support, 00:06:31.440 --> 00:06:34.360 material support, financial support. 00:06:34.360 --> 00:06:38.960 This platoon survives on a diet of mainly rice and dried salted fish. 00:06:38.960 --> 00:06:43.360 The guerrilla say every grain of rice represents the life of a farmer 00:06:43.360 --> 00:06:47.320 and without the sacrifices of local peasants, they would starve. 00:06:47.320 --> 00:06:50.120 A nearby spring supplies their drinking water 00:06:50.120 --> 00:06:53.120 and the heavy rains water for washing. 00:06:53.120 --> 00:06:55.240 They call it ‘extortion’, 00:06:55.240 --> 00:06:58.000 actually it’s revolutionary taxation on our part. 00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:03.320 All of the business, capitalists, in our Area of Responsibility 00:07:03.320 --> 00:07:07.320 are obliged to give their tax. 00:07:07.320 --> 00:07:12.680 If they fail to give us the tax, 00:07:12.680 --> 00:07:17.880 that’s why we also give a sanction. 00:07:17.880 --> 00:07:23.960 First, we give them a warning, a notice, 00:07:23.960 --> 00:07:26.240 that if they fail to give us what we want, 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:30.760 and then if they fail to answer us then 00:07:30.760 --> 00:07:36.760 we mobilise the masses and put them into action, 00:07:36.760 --> 00:07:42.840 to give punishment, a sanction like burning down their equipment. 00:07:42.840 --> 00:07:44.880 For the bigger multinational corporations 00:07:44.880 --> 00:07:47.800 that have a catastrophic impact on the environment 00:07:47.800 --> 00:07:50.240 and pursue aggressive expansion, 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:53.480 the NPA says it has no interest in taxation. 00:07:53.480 --> 00:07:57.400 Those corporations it simply wants to destroy. 00:07:57.400 --> 00:08:00.520 Not all the businesses here in our Area of Responsibility 00:08:00.520 --> 00:08:02.480 we collect taxes, 00:08:02.480 --> 00:08:11.640 especially those businesses that ruin, destroy the environment. 00:08:11.640 --> 00:08:17.360 Lessons teach us that multinationals, like Del Monte, 00:08:17.360 --> 00:08:24.520 is the one cause of what happened in 2011, the Typhoon Sendong. 00:08:24.520 --> 00:08:30.200 Because the plantation, the land could not hold, 00:08:30.200 --> 00:08:34.000 it eroded into the Cagayan River. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:39.760 The stand of the Revolutionary Movement is no to expansion, 00:08:39.760 --> 00:08:46.480 that’s our stand, so we do not impose taxation. 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:51.000 Only Del Monte and Dole. 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:52.800 You just burn it down? 00:08:52.800 --> 00:08:53.360 Yeah. 00:08:53.360 --> 00:08:56.480 In 2013, the NPA in this region carried out 00:08:56.480 --> 00:08:59.640 one of their biggest offensives to date against food giants 00:08:59.640 --> 00:09:03.880 Del Monte and Dole, a warning that they must stop expanding. 00:09:03.880 --> 00:09:06.560 This is NPA footage of the operation. 00:09:06.560 --> 00:09:09.760 Toto was one of its architects. 00:09:09.760 --> 00:09:11.840 That one in Del Monte attack 00:09:11.840 --> 00:09:16.360 was the event attended by the entire region. 00:09:16.360 --> 00:09:22.320 That was the first biggest operation here in the North Central. 00:09:22.320 --> 00:09:29.720 I was involved in planning and designing. 00:09:29.720 --> 00:09:35.480 That time we mobilised eight platoons. 00:09:35.480 --> 00:09:37.640 The attack left one security guard dead 00:09:37.640 --> 00:09:40.400 and caused thousands of dollars of damage. 00:09:40.400 --> 00:09:43.480 The NPA says these attacks are the only language 00:09:43.480 --> 00:09:47.720 big business will listen to, to stop their land grabbing. 00:09:47.720 --> 00:09:50.400 As of now there are no companies successful 00:09:50.400 --> 00:09:55.120 in seizing the bigger lands. 00:09:55.120 --> 00:10:08.400 Now these companies are showing fear. 00:10:08.400 --> 00:10:11.640 Earlier this year Duterte began pushing for the Communist Party 00:10:11.640 --> 00:10:14.920 to be put on a list of terrorist groups and individuals 00:10:14.920 --> 00:10:18.400 along with what the government calls its “legal fronts”, 00:10:18.400 --> 00:10:20.320 from student to women’s groups, 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:23.800 and seemingly anyone who challenges the government. 00:10:23.800 --> 00:10:27.000 Dubbed a ‘virtual hit list’ by human rights groups, 00:10:27.000 --> 00:10:30.480 even the UN Special Rapporteur for Indigenous Rights 00:10:30.480 --> 00:10:34.120 was named, alongside 600 other people. 00:10:34.120 --> 00:10:37.880 Despite pushing for this crackdown the government insists 00:10:37.880 --> 00:10:43.000 the NPA is a spent force that has dwindled from 25,000 guerrilla 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.560 during the Marcos era to 5,000 today. 00:10:46.560 --> 00:10:49.120 But half a century since the NPAs founding, 00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:52.480 it still attracts new generations who believe 00:10:52.480 --> 00:10:55.280 in keeping the Protracted People’s War alive 00:10:55.280 --> 00:10:59.800 just as passionately as their predecessors. 00:10:59.800 --> 00:11:04.760 Let me borrow what Chairman Mao Zedong said. 00:11:04.760 --> 00:11:10.000 He said: “The world is mine and yours 00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:16.960 but if we look at this in another view, the world is ours, the youth. 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:22.840 So we as the young people, we are the ones that give light. 00:11:22.840 --> 00:11:27.880 Our knees are very strong, our eyesight is clear, 00:11:27.880 --> 00:11:32.520 our mind is open for changes and ideas, 00:11:32.520 --> 00:11:39.880 we are the ones who will continue the revolution.